My Heart Breaks, I Pray for All

What is going on in the world affects us all on many different levels, both seen and unseen. For me, what's currently happening also feels a touch personal, closer to home in some small way. I made the mistake of going on social media today, barely a moment in and I realised this was not the place to be, not for me, not right now. Especially during a retreat, the very thing I advise people against during a retreat! So here I am instead, on beyondimogen.com - my little nook of the internet. I'm not sure if this post will ever make it elsewhere. -- I am horrified by what is going on in the world on all fronts. The divisiveness, the hate, the lines we have drawn in the sand, too many to count. It all feels impossible. How can we make our way through all of this? What is to be done? Today is the anniversary of my grandmothers death. She walks with me closely still to this day. In someways closer than ever... but that's a story for another day. My grandmother's family were Ukrainian Jews, my grandfather's, Russian Jews. The current war between the two was…

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Oh Merciful Love

Oh Merciful Love! Is not this love a universal love? A universal and all forgiving love. You fear your actions put you beyond redemption, beyond forgiveness. But what is unforgivable in the eyes of love? Grace has no such judgements of deservedness or not. Grace seeps into the hearts of all those who welcome her, of all those that open their hearts to the possibility of love. There are none so evil, so bad, so unredeemable that cannot be seen in the light of love when the understanding of what makes us do what we do is given space to dance. Grace is merciful, Grace is kind, Grace fills the air with the loving embrace of a mother unconditionally accepting her children back into the fold, endlessly time and time again. Don't be fooled into thinking that you are unworthy of love. Unworthiness comes from the realm of judgement and assumptions of action being unforgivable. Just look deeper: all action yearns for love, for wholeness, for acceptance. In its way all action comes from love no matter how misguided and utterly messy the results may be. So let us fall ceaselessly in love; let us fall fully into the arms…

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It’s All Grace

It's all Grace. Even when you feel Grace has forsaken you and life has thrown at you more than you can imagine would be possible, this too is Grace. We are the infinite sky for which all spontaneously appears and disappears back whence it came. We must not falsely mistake the transient nature of life's content for the inherent and ineffable stability of our true nature, our Self. You are never not Self. You are at your core, the embodiment of the Divine nature of life ebbing and flowing as it goes. Even in your most unforgivable actions, these too are the actions of Grace. And so all is Grace. But when you take personal ownership of life you will find yourself feeling stuck in the push and pull of judgements of right and wrong. You will forever be chasing your tail trying to keep or trying to get rid of this or that. You will forever be measuring yourself against ideals and questioning if you are 'good enough'. Can you accept all that you experience into your heart as that of the difference faces and appearances of Grace, of Consciousness, of YOU? For all is Consciousness, all is Divine,…

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By Grace

Life is not some beast to be tamed, a project to be mastered, or your b$*%h to be controlled. Life is a gift. The gift of Grace. And with this recognition I bow to the feet of life in gratitude. Grace courses through us in everything we touch, in everything we experience. There is nothing that isn't Grace. "It's all by Grace" For me is the most powerful and humbling recognition. The acknowledgement that I have no control. That I am here, all of me, all of my experiencing by Grace. And so in this it's all seen as a gift. -- Some call it God. Some call it Consciousness. Some call it fate. There are many names all pointing to that ineffable impersonal activity of life. I call it Grace. The infinite actions and endless possibilities of life playing life in the ocean of life. Wild and unpredictable. Plenty of variation, but no separation. Just as the sun shines on all, Grace is in all. There are no distinctions of good or bad, no questions of right or wrong. Everything that happens, everything that doesn't, all by Grace. Every whisper of a thought, every flash of a memory, every…

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